The Relief in Realization

There are things in life that are hard to realize. Sometimes it’s something that is supposed to be fantastic – like that you are in love – but it’s with a person who is unavailable. Or you’re also inlove with someone else. Or you can’t manifest that love in a way that is healthy so all you can do is harbour it. Sometimes it’s something that isn’t supposed to be masked as a wonderful gift from the world – like the realization that you’re the toxic half of a relationship, or the problems you’ve been having with your roommate are really just a projection of your “me” problems. Like how maybe you need the towels to be folded a certain way and expect others to know where to make the crease. Maybe it’s that you haven’t been drinking enough water, or that you need to make your already challenging work-outs even harder if you want to see results. The point is, realizing things is rarely easy. Maybe not the actual “aha” moment, but the knowledge that now you have to learn what you thought you knew. There’s always a catch; maybe you followed the right advice from the wrong person. Maybe you’re in the middle of dying your hair and you realize you should have bought two bottles – but then you’re glad you didn’t because dark auburn isn’t your colour regardless of if it isn’t covering every inch of your head. But even though it isn’t easy, there’s relief. Right person wrong time is definitely a thing – but there will be a time when the right person comes along and it doesn’t matter whether it’s 6AM and you’re still talking when you have to get up for work in 4 hours or if it’s half-way through the honeymoon period and you’re taking baths together via skype because there are thousands of miles and immeasurable amounts of love between you. And there is relief even in learning you are the one doing the hurting because it makes room to realize you are human, and sometimes you are fighting with a double-edged sword. It makes room to learn and grow and see yourself be better. There is relief in realization because every struggle comes with an answer. Whether you get it now or in five years. And sometimes you realize you’re fucking doing okay. And that life is working out for you, and you’re struggling because you want to use these circumstances to make it better. You are relieved that this is not all there is. You learn that it is in our nature, if we nurture the parts of ourselves that want to be better, to always find a flaw so we never have to settle. So we can always experience a little success. Because you realize there has never been relief in settling, and there is a reason there is risk in reward.